


Two Waifs Adrift in a Storm

by jonasnightingale



Category: The Princess Switch (2018)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-02 20:52:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17270936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonasnightingale/pseuds/jonasnightingale
Summary: For the twelve years with her face before him, her hand always within reach, her shoulder a place to lean, there are mornings he can almost convince himself the spill of hair on his pillow is hers. And there's a drop of dread at the base of his spine that maybe he traded their little infinity for a less intense ending, that maybe what he lost was not worth what he gained.**Because you don't fall in love with your best friend/business partner in three days and have it NOT be coloured by the life you've built together.





	Two Waifs Adrift in a Storm

He finds himself missing her. In the quiet minutes, in the down moods. It strikes him in strange moments, unexpectedly. Like when they run out of minutes in a day or forget to buy toothpaste at the store. He keeps stockpiling her notepads, although the pile grows these days with no-one to use them. His gait instinctively slowing as they walk past the homeless on the street; Liv walking herself home when no one clocks the time; the store-bought Halloween costumes come October… he aches in the empty spaces she once occupied. Twelve years intwined and he’s come to realise how much of their life was made by her, of her. Their bakery, always so full of love and light, now feels padded with longing, loss.

In her absence he begins to doubt himself - perhaps even hate himself - for the spite in which he’d always seen her intensity. Her dedication, which held his world together when Karen left, which pulled him out of bed and dressed Liv for school and showed up for them every single day, even as her own world fractured from the loss of her father. Her passion, which gave him a path to follow, which prompted the creation of their store, their home away from home. Her spirit, which took an abandoned child and a broken single dad and a downtrodden shopfront and turned them into a family, a place to be warm and safe and loved. Her selflessness and resilience that always demanded the best from them, that always gave them a soft place to land.

Some mornings he wakes and theres a warmth that starts deep within him at the brown hair on his pillow, the sleeping face turned towards him, a warmth that sours and turns when the eyes flutter open and the smile that meets him is just off. 

The jokes he goes to refer to, the moments that have made up their lives together, die on his tongue as he realises the ears they're for are on the other side of the world. The dependability he built their house on, he raised his daughter on, he relied on every moment of the past twelve years, was gone suddenly, unexpectedly. 

————

As the door swings open to the scent of sugar cookies baking, a heartstring quivers tight. For a second he expects it must be Margaret, trying to pull off a surprise, but her hair is longer, pulled back into a messy ponytail. Her hands are certain on the whisk, and the eyes that meet his are filled with a lifetime of catalogued stories and exchanges, their lifetime of. Her smile is weary and nervous and even as it brightens the room he wants to cry. Her quietly muttered “Kevin”, half-way between an expectant statement and an uncertain question, is what propels him forward. He fumbles with the keys as he pulls them from the door and deposits them on the counter. 

He really should have known. Stacey has never missed Olivia’s birthday. 

She won’t meet his eye. He knows this girl, inside and out, knows every tone of her voice and tilt of her head. He knows her tells, knows that they are the only people on earth that she will not run from when pushed, but she will avert her eyes. She’s been their pillar for as long as they’ve needed her to be, and she will not crumble before him. 

“So, uh, need a sous-chef?” It does the trick, and the look she throws him is filled with snark and jest, the quirked eyebrow and pointed chin filling one empty cavity of his chest. 

He can’t help himself, the furrow in his brow, the arms that wrap around her without warning, crushing her close. Her name spills from his lips quietly, almost like a prayer, a murmured mantra against her crown. “Stace, Stacey, Stacey”.

She doesn’t pull away, and he feels the sigh she releases as her head pushes further into the crook of his neck. He knows she likes to think that until recently there hadn’t been anyone in his life since Olivia’s mum left, but he’s started to realise just how wrong that was. He feels at home here, with her arm reaching around him in unsure bursts, with sugar cookies baking around them. Perhaps sparks are overrated; maybe this is all he has ever needed.


End file.
